From: "huestis" <buzzybee@capital.net>
Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 12:22:30 -0700
To: <BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: Requeening

HI ,

> Virgin drops for requeening are best! comments?

The best? That is possible. I would rather state the easiest and simplest.
The biggest problem to the method is mating the virgin (other methods also).

What about having poorly mated queens? Granted this isn't that often. But
the occasion must arise when weather, ect doesn't allow for good mating.
How do you work these into your management? By using nuc's to requeen you can see the quality of the queen before requeening. Thus the dud queens never make it to production hives. Also nuc's can be over wintered if queens aren't needed to replace deadouts or for sale. The negative (probably not the best word to use here) part to nuc's is the equipment and the bees needed to stock them.

Clay